Ite Boerema, 1902-1978: a Dutchman with a brilliant academic surgical career, and war hero, decorated for resistance to the Germans in World War II. As a man who regarded surgery as "engineering in medicine," we still feel his legacy in medical technology today, specifically with regard to his work on esophageal anastomoses and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. This biography places his major contributions to medicine in context of the man himself and of contemporary medicine.